Too much blood on the carpet usually comes back to haunt a prime minister

By George Jones

12:01AM BST 06 May 2006

Tony Blair intended to demonstrate that he was in charge and relaunching his Government after a humiliating night at the polls. But the history of Cabinet reshuffles shows that such radical surgery often sows the seeds of a prime minister's decline.

The blood on the carpet in Downing Street yesterday, with the sacking of his home secretary and the sidelining or demotion of six ministers, including John Prescott, Jack Straw and Hilary Armstrong, bore striking similarities to the brutal reaction by previous embattled occupants of No 10.

In July 1962, the government's unpopularity led the Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan to sack seven Cabinet ministers in "the night of the long knives". The principal casualty was the chancellor, Selwyn Lloyd.

Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader, commented that "greater love than this hath no man that he should lay down his friends for his life".

But it did not save Macmillan. The following year the Profumo affair further destabilised his government, and Macmillan, after falling ill, resigned and the Tories lost power a year later.

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Margaret Thatcher disliked reshuffles, admitting she was not a good butcher when it came to sacking ministers.

But they came thick and fast during her final years in power. Like Mr Blair she had won three elections, but as she approached her 10th anniversary as prime minister, many of her MPs saw her as an electoral liability and wanted her to go.

In July 1989 - a month after a crushing defeat at the hands of Labour in the European elections - Mrs Thatcher sacked or moved half her Cabinet. It saw the removal from the Foreign Office of Sir Geoffrey Howe who was - like Jack Straw and the late Robin Cook under Mr Blair - appointed leader of the Commons. Sir Geoffrey was never reconciled to his move and little over a year later, after continually being sidelined as deputy prime minister, he quit the Cabinet. His bitter resignation speech to MPs paved the way for the leadership contest that ended Mrs Thatcher's premiership.

Within three months of that 1989 reshuffle she was forced to make more changes when Nigel Lawson resigned as chancellor. In her final year as prime minister, there were five reshuffles. But they failed to prevent her removal from office by Tory MPs who saw her as out of touch with the electorate.

After Black Wednesday in September 1992, her successor John Major was never strong enough to get rid of Cabinet critics who made his life hell over Europe. Asked why he did not sack disloyal Eurosceptic ministers, he said he did not want "three more bastards out there".

He resigned as Tory leader in 1995, telling critics to put up or shut up. He won enough support to limp on as prime minister for two years, before the Tories were swept out by a slick, modernised Labour Party led by Tony Blair.